Pentagon Eases Jab At Soviets

Collision May Have Been Accident, U.s. Hints

September 17, 1985|By Terry Atlas and James O`Shea, Chicago Tribune.

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon backed off Monday from the charge by Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger that Soviet troops in East Germany ``deliberately`` rammed a U.S. military vehicle before detaining its occupants, two American military liaison officers, at gunpoint for nine hours.

A Defense Department spokesman said it wasn`t clear whether the Soviets intentionally sideswiped the American vehicle, which was stalled along the side of a road near a Soviet communications center. But Pentagon officials reasserted that the two unidentified U.S. servicemen were not trespassing in a restricted area and were detained improperly.

Weinberger, who demanded a formal apology from the Soviets, said Sunday that the incident was part of a ``continuing series`` of such problems in East Germany. The most serious was the shooting death of Maj. Arthur Nicholson by a Soviet guard during a similar surveillance patrol last March.

But State Department officials, providing additional details of the Sept. 7 incident, said it did not appear to be another of the occasional incidents in which American military vehicles have been purposely harassed by Soviet troops.

Conflicting accounts by Weinberger and State Department officials offer a glimpse of the growing tensions between the two departments as the administration approaches the U.S.-Soviet summit meeting in November.

State Department officials raised doubts about the completeness of Weinberger`s account when they disclosed that the vehicle was stuck on barbed wire near the shoulder of the road when the Soviet truck approached it. They also questioned whether the American vehicle had been struck at all by the Soviets.

``This is not being viewed by us as that big a thing,`` said one State Department official, who asked not to be identified.

Weinberger didn`t mention anything about barbed wire or the informal Soviet apology when he disclosed the incident on CBS-TV`s ``Face the Nation`` Sunday, more than a week after it occurred.

He implied that the American vehicle, a Jeep-like truck, had been forced off the road in an intentional provocation. And he said the protest had not produced ``anything very positive`` in response from the Soviets.

Weinberger mentioned only one occupant, the driver, and said the

``Soviets bumped his truck deliberately.``

The Pentagon, revising Weinberger`s account, said Monday that two U.S. servicemen were involved and that their vehicle did ``become entangled in some discarded wire hidden by tall grass.``

A Soviet truck sped down the road and ``grazed`` the U.S. vehicle, the Pentagon said.

Asked whether that was deliberate, another Pentagon official, Cmdr. Bob Prucha, said: ``We are not taking a stand on that. The fact is their vehicle hit ours. Whether it was intentional or not is in the mind of the Soviet driver.``

Some administration officials also questioned whether the Americans were in an area open to them. The Pentagon said they were, but that their vehicle was later towed by the Soviets to another area and photographed in front of a ``military restricted sign.``

State Department spokesman Charles Redman said the chief of the U.S. liaison mission in Potsdam was notified of the incident when a Soviet military officer called and ``stated that a small problem existed, provided details, and assured him that the problem was under control.

``In fact, the Soviet military, at one point, did help disentangle our vehicle from barbed wire,`` he said.

The Pentagon said Soviet troops, ``rifles unslung,`` detained the two Americans in their vehicle for about six hours until a Soviet lieutenant colonel arrived and began questioning them. The vehicle was then towed to another location, where the Americans were allowed to repair it and leave after about two more hours.